


Living Dead Dex

by knightinpinkunderwear



Series: Dexter Morgan get more therapy challenge [5]
Category: Dexter (TV)
Genre: Crying, Cussing, Depression, Distrust, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Explicit Language, Gen, Jealousy, POV Alternating, POV Brian Moser, POV Dexter Morgan, POV Third Person Limited, Secret Identity, Suicidal Thoughts, pov debra morgan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27997491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinpinkunderwear/pseuds/knightinpinkunderwear
Summary: Rudy the boyfriend is recruited by Deb the sister to help keep an eye on Dexter. And Dexter... he just doesn't care. Caring takes energy he doesn't have and... he isn't sure he even can care. So what was the point in trying?
Relationships: Debra Morgan & Dexter Morgan, Debra Morgan/Brian Moser, Dexter Morgan & Brian Moser
Series: Dexter Morgan get more therapy challenge [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799461
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	Living Dead Dex

**Author's Note:**

> Dexter is tired because feeling things is exhausting and so is suddenly feeling empty again. 
> 
> Trigger Warning: Dexter is kind of suicidal, but not wanting to create an end for himself, more just not wanting to exist, and wanting to never have been born.  
> If you think this will be hazardous to your emotional or mental well-being please do not hurt yourself by reading this.

He is almost grateful for Deb's driving on the way back to his apartment. (She swung by her place first to grab clothes and her toothbrush becuase they both know she will steal his toothpaste and shampoo). (His car was still left at Rita's).

"You look worse than when you went in," she said, giving him a light punch to the shoulder.

"Ow," he responded half-heartedly. He doesn't even rub where she hit him, he would have if he cared. And he just didn't. It didn't seem worth the energy. He didn't even care that it hurt. He'd just said 'ow' on instinct, on reflex. 

"Seriously, though Dex, you alright?" Deb drops the joking, light tone, switching to serious concern. 

"I'm fine," he answered with a sigh thick enough that they both know he was lying. Dexter couldn't find the energy to care though. Debra had already started to learn how much of her brother was fake, and despite everything of the past two days, he was relying on muscle memory. He never told her when something was wrong, ever. Two panic attacks and one therapy appointment was not going to change his trained response for _'are you okay?'_

Besides, he didn't _feel_ worse, he just felt empty. He felt numb to the point of nothingness, it was familiar, and it was almost better than the fear and the pain and confusion. But in another way, it was also _worse_. In another way, his not feeling worse did feel worse. And he was too tired to want to think about that dichotomy.

Because the little wooden boy was reminded that he wasn't yet real, that maybe he never could be real. And he was starting to wonder what the point was in pretending. 

Deb let him be. Though she wouldn't let him sit in his bedroom alone with the door closed. At least she allowed him the privacy of closing the bathroom door. 

He looked in the mirror and wondered if he recognized the thing staring back at him. He knows it is him, but he wants to know what manner of beast it --he-- is. Whatever it is, he has the impression the world might have been better without one of it in existence. But it had already been born, the damage is done. 

There was no cure, only damage control. 

_You can't stop these urges Dexter, only channel them._

Harry's words have little comfort, they always did lack. But Dexter was never a creature that needed comfort. Harry knew that. Harry wouldn't lie to him.

_But Harry did lie._

He considered sleeping, it was one of the few activities Deb would probably allow him, with his arms and hands in their current condition. And unconsciousness would provide some time where he did not have to be _aware_ of his emptiness. 

With any luck, he will cite the fiasco of the past two days as an explanation and say that he is tired and will be granted an early night. 

Debra allowed him no such luck. Instead, she invited her boyfriend. Rudy, with a moment of good advice to make up for Dexter's skepticism and Deb's bad history with men. 

She doesn't let him stay in his room, following him around and telling him that she will not let him _sulk all alone in the dark_ , he bites back a comment about how he _isn't sulking_ but he doesn't have the energy to secure his mask enough to _act_. He can almost feel it slipping, and he doesn't care that the corner has slipped out of place, he is _tired_ and empty and Deb already noticed, trying to hide it now would only result in more prying and probing.

The mask would not survive any close inspection right now, so he complied with her requests. He sat on the couch and stared blankly at the tv where she turned it on to one of those predator shows, about reptiles. He wasn't even looking at the screen, his vision unfocused and he didn't even have the energy to feign interest in the program.

Rudy brings pizza with him and Dexter doesn't have the energy to greet him or even attempt to secure his mask. He doesn't want to eat either, then he would have to look at his hands and face the evidence of his brokenness and feel the wave of emptiness crash over him and drown him in a fresh sea of apathy. He doesn't have the energy to address it again.

Feeling nothing like this after all that fear and confusion and... sadness? is so much more exhausting than pretending has ever been before.

He spent his whole life pretending to care, now he doesn't even care enough to try to hide the gaps in his character.

Besides, he wasn't hungry.

Not for food, not for blood.

He was hungry for _nothing._ For the shadows in the corners of the room, for the darkness behind his eyelids when he blinked. For the silence and timelessness of sleep. He is hungry to be swallowed up in the nothing, for the emptiness to take even his exhaustion away. For it to swallow him up like an implosion. One blink and no more Dexter Morgan.

If he was hungry for anything it was the idea of never having been born. He was hungry for someplace he could climb into and stop existing until he wasn't tired anymore.

And he knew it wasn't possible, and that knowledge only exhausted him further.

* * *

He thought he'd be pleased to see Dexter without his mask, and the stupid pretenses he put up for normal people. 

But Dexter wasn't reveling in the freedom granted by the slip. He wasn't doing anything. He was just _there._ And he looked like if anything, he didn't want to be.

He looked dead. No, that wasn't quite it. Dexter looked trapped in his own mind, but he didn't look like he was thinking. 

There was a bone-deep tiredness coming off him. It was dense. And Brian got the impression that Dexter would much rather be by himself in the dark. Not because it was a time when he didn't have to pretend but because he looked tired. 

And Brian wasn't sure what about this tiredness that seemed so wrong but something about it... it wasn't any normal sort of exhaustion. 

He almost wanted to pummel Debra, who'd in a spectacular show of idiocy, taken Dexter to see a shrink. 

Didn't she know that those types of doctors only made things worse?! 

That they poked and prodded and did nothing to help? 

Maybe psychiatry had progressed a lot since they were children but there was still too much of a chance that whatever shrink Dexter encountered had worsened this mess. 

Because Brian didn't know if he would be alright if he'd caused this, if he'd hurt his baby brother like this. He'd promised their mother that he'd always look after Dexter. And he would. 

he just wished that the plans he'd made would go more like how he thought they would. 

Dexter doesn't move. He breathes still, but that's autopilot. He doesn't seem present in his body... and if he is, he doesn't seem like he wants to be. 

Brian doesn't know what's wrong with his dear little brother but he _knows_ something is. 

Something besides the lie of a life he's trapped in. Something besides being stolen away from his only real family by that stupid cop. 

Even Dexter's fake sister can see that something is wrong, and she is not exactly the most perceptive. Though he does have to remind himself she's more perceptive than she seems, she is getting better at being a detective and he needs to make sure he doesn't give himself away too soon. 

It would be no good to ruin a plan so many years in the making with poor judgment or simple hiccups. 

Perhaps the most obvious sign that Dexter is not himself and not alright is that he won't eat. He hasn't even looked at the food. And it's not like meat lover's and the deluxe pizzas have subtle smells. 

Dexter is a killing machine, the amount of exercise he went through to keep in killing shape required a lot of calories. And Brian had the distinct feeling that Dexter enjoyed food, and might even be the type to eat when upset. 

Debra tries to offer him a slice. He doesn't look away from the TV screen, though it's obvious that his gaze isn't even focused on that. 

Deb pulls him towards the kitchen and hands him a beer. Dexter stays, unmoving. 

They both watch him, out of brotherly and sisterly concern. Even though she is not his sister. And never will be. She's the offspring of that self-righteous Harry Morgan who instead of helping decided to steal away the youngest and leave the oldest brother to live his fucked up childhood where no one treated him as a child or tried to care for him with any sort of compassion. And yet Brian feels in this moment that he might be the more well-adjusted of the two of them. 

"He's been like this since we left the clinic, I could see it and I couldn't do a damn thing, he just started shutting down," she says, watching Dexter. 

"Is this normal?" 

Debra huffs, "Not really, but I guess it's normal for when he's upset," 

"How so?" He asks, sipping the beer and keeping his eyes on his baby brother. 

"Usually when he's upset, it's like he's skipped the feelings and just goes straight to that numb shit you get after half a bottle of vodka and a tub of triple fudge ice cream," 

Brian has a vague idea of what she means by that. Debra did have a unique way of describing things, he will give her that. 

"What happened to his arms?" He asks. She'd told him about a panic attack but he hadn't heard about him getting attacked by a cat. Or whatever else could have caused an accident covering that much area on his forearms and hands. And Brian didn't want to begin to think if the gauze was covering wounds that were inflicted on purpose, because then he really will have failed as an older brother. 

"He broke a glass and I guess he cut his hands up and the blood freaked him out, Rita says he tore up his arms trying to wipe it away, 'cause there was still glass in his hands," Debra explains, downing another swig of beer with a wince.

"Ouch," he replies, an understatement. 

"Yeah," 

"Is that how the second panic attack started?" He doesn't have to create a tone as much here, because he is concerned about Dexter and he does want to know how it is his baby brother keeps tripping and hurting himself in the plans meant to free him. 

"That's my guess," Deb answered, looking to her half cold piece of pizza. She looks both hungry and completely uninterested in actually attempting to eat the foodstuff. 

Usually, three adults would be able to polish off at least most of one pizza. As it stands, they put the boxes in the fridge with only two slices missing. 

Then Debra grabbed a large first aid kit from under the sink and stalked off to the couch where Dexter sat, exactly as they left him, staring, unfocused at the tv screen. She put the kit on the coffee table in front of the couch. Dexter does nothing to acknowledge her presence or closeness. And Brian bites back the swell of vindictive pleasure that the image caused.

Dexter wasn't ignoring his fake sister because of any disdain for her or to create distance from her, he is just, as Debra said, 'shutting down'.

Dexter doesn't react as his real brother approaches either.

"Hey, Dex, we gotta clean the scratches on your arms, you okay with that?" Debra asks, trying to stand in his field of vision.

Dexter does not say a thing, but he does respond. He lifts his arms, holding his palms up, and turns his head to look away, towards the back wall to his side.

Brian comes over, "This will go faster with the both of us," he says to Debra. She smiles, unguarded with sad eyes.

Debra takes Dexter's right arm and he takes his brother's left.

Thankfully, there is no glass in the wounds he uncovers. But the cuts in his palms are deep and Dexter does nothing to try to protect the wounds. He doesn't jerk away at the sting of hydrogen peroxide, and it must sting, he can feel his baby brother's pulse hasten after the cuts start to bubble and sizzle.

Brian takes care to be as gentle as he can. It has been so long since he last got to care for his brother in this way. Thirty-three years at least. And this is more than a scrape from falling off of a skateboard or tripping on the driveway while playing tag.

It's worse than a normal accident too. Dexter had cut himself with broken glass because he was scared of something Brian had made him remember. He should have known better than to think that Dexter would have any sort of pleasant time remembering their mother's death. He should have known better than to think it would be simple or easy to get Dexter to remember.

So these cuts, deep and raw, scratches from broken glass, these are Brian's fault. He caused his baby brother to hurt himself. The least he can do is help them heal.

* * *

Deb doesn't want to leave Dex alone. Though technically he's not alone because Rudy is a fucking Godsend and a saint and so many other amazing things. But she still feels bad about it 'cause Dex doesn't really know Rudy much and he isn't much on the vulnerability thing.

And he definitely isn't a fan of her other past boyfriends. He liked Rudy more than the others though. But to be honest, that wasn't exactly impressive.

Masuka was probably the only person she and Dex knew with a worse list of exes and past fucks. And ew, she really just compared herself to _fucking Masuka._

She takes a taxi to Rita's, which probably would've been more dangerous were she not ready to kick some ass to let out all this stupid frustration and helplessness she was feeling. Because her brother was hurting goddamnit, and he was hurting so bad he'd already shut down and he wouldn't even _eat_ for fuck's sake. Deb is almost mad the driver doesn't try any shit.

She really wanted to punch someone. Someone who had it coming preferably.

Because then she wouldn't have to feel bad about it afterward.

Dex's car starts up easy and she has no real reason to justify hitting the steering wheel. She probably looks like a shithead. Whatever.

She has to pick up her brother's car because he can't drive because he fucked up his hands because he gave himself a fucking panic attack because he's got fucking trauma and he might have fucking seen his mom get _murdered_ in front of him when he was a fucking _toddler_. So maybe she's got good reason to beat the shit out of the steering wheel.

Then she feels like an absolute piece of shit. Because as much as she wants to speed back to make sure Dex is okay and hasn't managed to get himself hurt or hurt himself in the twenty minutes she's been gone, she also wants to take her time. She wants to take time where she doesn't have to take care of him, and it makes her feel like a monumentally shitty sister.

But being the responsible one and the one to lean on had always been Dexter's thing. And even though she'd always offered to be the strong one for him, he'd never had taken her up on that offer. She had no fucking clue what she was doing and she had no idea how to be the stable one.

Though maybe she had always been the stable one, maybe Dex had just hidden his shit so well even he couldn't see it.

And fucking cheese on a cracker she did not want to think about that.

It was bad enough knowing Dex was bad at being hurt, and she was bad at being comforting, she didn't need to think about how he might have been hurt this whole fucking time.

She didn't want to think about how if that were true, how much Dad had failed them both.

She knew Dad had never really seen her, but she never considered that he might not have seen Dexter either, not with how much time he'd spent with Dex. And if he hadn't seen Dex and hadn't seen how fucking traumatized he was the had Dad been a good dad to either of them?

She pushes the thoughts down (maybe she needed a fucking therapist too) and started on her way back to Dex. She doesn't want to leave him alone with Rudy too long. Both for Dex's and Rudy's sakes.

Dex is exactly where he was when she left, looking as dead to the fucking world as he'd been then too, sitting up and staring at nothing.

"He still doesn't want to eat," Rudy worries, sitting at the counter with his warm, half-empty beer.

"He say anything?"

"No," Rudy sighs, and she sends a prayer of thanks for the man because he actually seems to _give a damn_ that her brother isn't okay. And she's glad that she isn't alone. Even though she loves Dex.

She just doesn't want to be alone with him when he's like this. She'd never seen him so dead before. He'd get weird and distant and shut down, but it had never been this bad. Never this long. And she was really worrying.

She gets an idea and feels absolutely awful. Because she feels like crap for believing it, but she's also so damn scared that it might be right.

She goes into Dex's room and bathroom and takes all the sharp stuff. The knife in his bedside dresser and the razor by the sink. Then she dragged the chest from Dex's closet, Dad's shotgun was in it and if she was paranoid to take the face razor from him, then she was sure as shit not gonna leave a trunk with a fucking gun in it.

She was gonna move it someplace she could keep an eye on it when Dexter slept. She almost put the knife and the razor in a kitchen drawer before thinking better, and opens the laundry closet, shoving them in there instead, before turning back to get the chest.

"What are you-?" Rudy asks when she comes back out of Dex's room, trunk in tow.

She sets it next to the washing machine and closes the squeaky door, looks at Dexter. He hasn't moved even an inch. She might just fucking cry.

Deb turns to her boyfriend, takes a deep breath that doesn't do shit for her nerves.

"I don't know if Dex would want to hurt himself, but I don't wanna take that fucking chance," she whispers, if she had even used a hint of real volume her voice would've broke. She can feel it in her throat, that awful choking lump of soreness. Her eyes are stinging with tears she wished would just _go away_.

Rudy pulls her into his arms, and she's fucking shaking now. Dex needs her and she's fucking falling apart under the pressure. Fuck, she's such a shitty sister.

"He's my brother, he's all I got, I don't him _to hurt_ -" she sobs as quietly as she can. Dexter doesn't need to hear this. He needs to be able to deal with his own shit without having to worry about her.

"I know," Rudy says, patting her on the back.

She pulls herself together as best she can and pulls away. She walks to the couch, to Dexter, taps his shoulder.

He doesn't acknowledge the contact with anything more than a deep breath.

"You look like shit," she started, trying to sound like she wasn't overwhelmed and freaking out, "I'll let you go to bed now," that Dexter does react to.

His face pinches a bit.

"You hear me, Dex?" she asked.

"Yeah," her brother says, barely more than a whisper. But it's the first thing he's said in _hours_ and she's fucking relieved.

Then Dex moves. He stands up, keeping his eyes on the floor in front of his feet, and trudges towards the front of the apartment, past the kitchen and Rudy to the door to his bedroom.

He stalls in the door, "Thanks, Deb, you're a good sister," his voice is so quiet and while soft isn't quite the word, there isn't really a better one. "Better than I deserve," he continues.

"Bullshit," she retorts, really worried now. Dex was not the type to be verbally fond.

The corner of his mouth twitches, the closest thing to a smile Dex has had since she can't fucking remember when.

"Goodnight Deb, Rudy," Dex says, walking into his room and leaving the door open. (Not like she'd let him close it). She and the prosthetist repeat the sentiment.

Debra turns to her boyfriend. Rudy looks as confused as she feels. They sit in silence, listening to the slow shuffling of Dex getting into bed.

She hopes that whatever just happened meant that Dex was pulling himself out of the living-dead zombie phase. But there was no way to be sure, not until tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year! I am sad and angry that Dexter is no longer on Netflix >:( 
> 
> I hope you liked this regardless and I can say with confidence that I have no idea where the series will go on from here. Other than that Dex will not be working any time soon.


End file.
